Take Me, Use Me

I can’t believe that it has been over 2 months since I last wrote my blog. What have I been up to and why have I not been writing?

Well, I guess I have been living.

Whole-heartedly.

Sucking the marrow out of life.

Watching Spring burst into life.

On a 10 day tour with my spiritual teacher which included me receiving 60 hours of spiritual teaching, meditation, guidance, self-inquiry, chanting, praying, breathwork and much more! And, as if that wasn’t enough, I was actually sharing accommodation with my teacher and spending nearly as many hours again in her company over the 10 days. It was intense. It was deeply healing. The sadness took my breath away at times. I heard myself wailing with grief and felt tears of deep gratitude and joy pouring down my face at different times. You may ask “why would you put yourself through that?” I have a one word answer – FREEDOM!

And then home to La Girouette to integrate all the shifts in the peace and quiet here and also spend a precious week with one of my step-daughters who is visiting.

So, in a nut-shell, that is why I haven’t blogged for a while.

In amongst all this transformation, I have been asking for guidance about how I can best be of service. The short prayer “Take me, use me” is one of my morning practices. A few weeks ago it led me to open a shoe-box which was full of thank you cards from coaching clients and students of mine since I started coaching back in 2005. It was one of the very few personal items which I didn’t let go of when we packed up our life in Northern Ireland in 2017. I wasn’t sure why I kept it but I did. Even though Life Coaching is the most profoundly fulfilling career I have ever experienced, back in 2016 I realised that I was feeling a little jaded after 11 years of 1-1 personal coaching. So I took the insane step of walking away from my thriving personal coaching business and my main source of income. Even though it made no logical sesnse at the time, it was definitely the right step for me. Little did I know that I would have needed the last couple of years to say farewell to Northern Ireland and my life there and to land in the Dordogne and integrate into our new life here! The timing was perfect although I had no idea of the enormous life change that was going to happen so quickly.

When I opened the box with all the Thank You cards in it recently and read through them I was transported back to each client and some of the issues we had worked through in our sessions together. For the first time in ages I connected back in with the feelings of fulfilment and purposefulness which I experienced after nearly all my coaching sessions. I suddenly realised that I miss that aspect of my life and, since it is something which I can offer easily via Skype (or in person in the Dordogne), why wouldn’t I open myself up to the idea of taking on a few clients again? My ego-mind came up with a few reasons but I inquired into each of them and realised they weren’t the Truth. The Truth is that I am a really good coach and supporting people in that way really fills me up, except when I take on too many clients and lose my balance. But I won’t do that to myself again.

So, on this very wet May afternoon, I sat down at my laptop and wrote these words about what I have to offer. I am not going to do any big sales drive on it. I am not going to push. I am not going to hustle for business. I am going to gently share my new offering via my social media and ask you or anyone else who cares to share this page with any friends who might need my support. And then I let it go and trust that whoever needs me will find me.

Gone are the days of any efforting or trying by either me or my beloved, Eoin. We have created so much space and peace in our lives and we are so committed to our daily practices that we now only do what truly feels like right action, without any ‘shady motives’ as Sally Kempton puts it.

Offering to support a few people with my coaching skills feels like totally right action for me now. So I took action, created an information page and wrote this. Where it goes or who it lands with is not within my control and I no longer strive to make things happen the way I used to. Trust, trust, trust. What a beautifully simple yet complex task it is to find the perfect balance between making things happen and letting things happen.

I have no idea what is going to happen now but I am open to being of service and I am open to my time, energy and experience being valued in return.

What is your favourite, simple prayer? I would love it if you shared it in the comments box below.